So long, seniors: An early end to a great season
The Utah State men’s basketball team’s aspirations for a magical run in the NCAA tournament faded away quicker than one can say, “This is March,” as it was announced Thursday that due to the COVID-19 pandemic the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments — along with all other NCAA activities for the spring — were canceled. The abrupt end to the season also meant an abrupt end to the college careers of Sam Merrill and Diogo Brito. But it wasn’t before their 2-year run that brought Aggie basketball back to prominence ended with their own “one shining moment,” despite the cancellation of the NCAA tournament.
The initial shock of the tournament’s cancellation and the season ending was devastating for the seniors.
“The turn of events just happened in a blink of an eye,” said senior guard Diogo Brito. “To just terminate the season there, it was really hard. I was just not ready for it.”
Senior guard Sam Merrill agreed.
“It was tough, not only knowing that we weren’t going to play in the tournament and have that opportunity,” Merrill said, “But about 30 minutes later it finally hit that that was it, that my career had just ended.”
It is a harsh reality that these men’s time spent dawning an Aggie uniform is really over. But it is over, and some are asking what contributions did they make to USU basketball, and what will their legacy ultimately be?
Merrill said, “For me, I just hope my legacy is — I played a small part in helping Utah State get back to Utah State.”
Photo by Iain Laurence
Utah State has a proud basketball history, with (including this year) 22 NCAA tournament appearances and 17 conference championships. They were especially impressive during the years Merrill was a kid going to Aggie games, with Stew Morrill — the coach from 1998 to 2015 — amassing 402 wins, including seven conference championships, eight NCAA tournament appearances and 14 straight 20-win seasons, from 1999-00 all the way to the 2012-13 season.
In 2013, the Aggies joined the Mountain West conference, a deeper and more talented league than USU had ever been in. Morrill would coach two seasons in the Mountain West where he struggled to win, before he retired. His replacement, Tim Duryea, struggled even more in his three seasons as coach, having a 47-49 record and no 20-win seasons. After years of winning and success, the Aggie basketball program was mediocre.
So as Merrill and Brito began their junior season in 2018, this is what they faced: five straight seasons in which they failed to win 20 games — all in the Mountain West — and no NCAA tournament appearance dating back to the 2010-2011 season.
With a new coach in Craig Smith and a No. 9 preseason Mountain West ranking, the team set out to flip the script and bring the Aggies back to their winning ways.
Winning a share of the conference title last year, and back-to-back conference tournament championships and NCAA tournament appearances, it’s safe to say that goal was accomplished.
“We worked so hard as a group and as a team to get back to where we wanted to go,” Merrill said, “and to have been able to do that with Coach Smith and the staff and these fans, it’s something that I’ll never forget.”
Beating both No. 12 Nevada and San Diego State in Brito and Merrill’s junior years, then this season — beating two teams that would have made the tournament, Louisiana State University and Florida, were marquee victories not soon to be forgotten in Cache Valley.
But what some consider the crowning jewel of the season was the March 7 win over San Diego in Las Vegas that almost didn’t happen. A scheduling conflict at the Thomas & Mack Center pushed the MWC tournament up a week — just before cancellations to prevent further spread of COVID-19.
“This is the one year in 10 years that the Mountain West has moved their tournament up and turns out it was a blessing for us,” Merrill said.
The adversity faced just to get to that game, and the way the team managed to win it, made the win all the better for the seniors.
“I wasn’t sure I thought we could do it — to be able to beat a team like that and finish the way we did,” Merrill said, “I know that a lot of people, I know that a lot of our fans lost faith in us after we lost four out of five and then lost again at New Mexico.”
With all the ups and downs this season, Brito thinks things came in full circle.
“We beat the No. 5 team in the country,” he said. “It proves a lot about this team.”
March 7 | San Diego State@smerrill05 sank the shot of his life securing back-to-back Mountain West Championships for the Aggies!#SelectionSunday pic.twitter.com/6brMPAWbEY
— USU Men's Hoops (@USUBasketball) March 15, 2020
The win over the previously one-loss Aztecs tied a 1960 win over No. 5 Utah as the highest ranked win in program history. And to do it on that stage, to punch a ticket to the dance with a game-winning Sam Merrill-dagger — and especially with what we know now, with it being the last shot he ever took as an Aggie — may just make it the best win in school history.
“Just rewatching the game or looking back at highlights, and right next to SDSU there’s a 30-1, and it’s just like — they were so good,” Merrill said. “They had a real chance to win it all, like for real, they just had everything…In hindsight, and knowing what we know, you couldn’t ask for a better way to go out.”
Brito agreed.
“This is the way I’m gonna put it: If we knew two weeks ago that there was not gonna be a March Madness tournament, I cannot imagine a better way of finishing the season,” he said. “It ended in such a good way.”
Merrill will finish his Aggie career with 2,197 points all-time, second most in Mountain West and Utah State history. The buckets Merrill hit, the stats that he earned and wins that he helped earn, give some level of entrance into the discussion of the greatest Aggie of all-time. Utah State play-by-play announcer Scott Gerrard made that proclamation after Merrill’s game-winner in Las Vegas.
“For anyone to say that, and for me to even be in the conversation is something I dreamt of as a kid, but I’m not sure I ever thought was actually going to happen,” Merrill said.
Brito finished 10th all-time in games played for the Aggies, proving he was a vital role player in his career. As a junior and senior, his team went an astounding 28-0 when he scored double digits, including the 2018-19 season win over Nevada and the 2019-20 wins over LSU, Florida and New Mexico. “I know there’s a lot of things that I will forever remember and will always hold dear,” he said.
The two will move on with their lives — both hoping to have successful professional careers — but their time at Utah State and the people they spent it with is something they will treasure forever, in their words.
“I felt like we grew together and we did this together,” Merrill said of Brito and Abel Porter. “[We] have put a ton of work and had so much fun and I’m gonna miss those guys for sure.”
Twitter: @jacobnielson12